Roofman – Film Review

Cast: Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, LaKeith Stanfield, Juno Temple, Ben Mendelsohn

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Synopsis: After breaking out of prison, a former soldier and professional criminal on the run from the police seeks to avoid detection from the police by hiding in a branch of Toys ‘R’ Us…

Review: Upon hearing a film entitled Roofman, you might well think that without any prior knowledge, it would be the latest attempt to capitalise on the popularity of the superhero genre, especially one of the more obscure variety. Yet, this actually does not draw inspiration from the pages of a comic book and is emphatically not about a hero of any description. Incredulously, it is based on the bizarre true story of the escapades of a former soldier turned criminal and a rather ingenious plan he devises to avoid being caught.

It is the late 1990s, and Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) is a divorced US Army veteran struggling to provide for his three young children. Acting on the advice of his army colleague Steve (an underutilised Stanfield), he uses his powers of observation and ability to take advantage of routines to break into more than three dozen McDonald’s restaurants to steal cash from the safe, giving the morning shift employees the fright of their lives. Earning the nickname of “The Roofman” via the media, he is eventually caught and sent to prison. While locked up, he uses his meticulous eye for routines to escape prison and to avoid detection by the law, choosing to lay low by hiding in a Toys R Us store for months, completely unbeknownst to the store’s employees.

Derek Cianfrance is no stranger to finding humanity in the life of someone who is forced to turn to crime as a means to support individuals he so dearly loves, albeit from a distance. Therefore, Cianfrance and Gunn’s screenplay has a deft balancing act to find a way to sympathise with Manchester, in spite of his criminal antics. Fortunately, when you have an actor as charismatic and as likeable as Tatum is, that is certainly going to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Yet, it is evident that though he resorts to stealing to financially provide for his children, he is not the sort of ruthless criminal who would enter a store all guns blazing with no care for who could get hurt, quite the opposite as he goes out of his way to ensure the employees he encounters are safe and comfortable, shortly before locking them in a walk-in freezer.

The film is certainly at its most enjoyable and gleefully silly when depicting Manchester’s antics in the store. He uses an ingenious way to keep a watchful eye over the store and its employees to ensure that the coast is clear. Furthermore, when he knows he has the entire store all to himself, the antics he gets up to with all the toys in the world at his disposal to play with and living off candy, essentially living any child’s dream. He really is one big kid, and those who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s will certainly get a great big dose of Toys R Us nostalgia.

Never is Jeffrey’s kind heart more evident than when he escapes the confines of his hideout in the store and makes his way into the local community, where he meets and quickly falls in love with Leigh (Dunst). Leight is a working mum with two daughters who recently went through a divorce, and also happens to work at the very same store Manchester is hiding in, and has to deal with an unforgiving boss in Peter Dinklage’s Mitch. Having gotten into his criminal life out of a desire to take care of his kids, it is easy to want to root for him as he tries to make a positive impression on Leigh’s daughters, and the chemistry between Tatum and Dunst is sincere and delightful to watch. Given his status as a wanted fugitive, you know it is not going to be a lasting relationship, but it is easy to root for them and, against all odds, find a way to make it work.

Despite being someone whose heart is in the right place and who strives to be the perfect family man, unfortunately, he is not that. As endearing as Tatum’s performance is, the film is a little too kind to him and completely overlooks the fact that he got himself into his current predicament for a reason. The phrase “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” comes to mind. Despite this mishap, Cianfrance brings plenty of humanity, humour and heart to this stranger-than-fiction tale that will make you laugh, smile and also make you wish you could transport yourself back to the 2000s, or back to being a kid again and having that wide-eyed look of wonder on your face when you walk into a toy store. Simpler times.

It could have certainly been much more critical of its leading man’s misdeeds, but thanks to Tatum’s witty and sincere performance and the hilarious shenanigans that ensue, this witty comedy crime caper will cut a hole in the roof of your heart and win you over.

**© Warner Bros. Pictures and Ghoulardi Film Company**

One Battle After Another – Film Review

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti, Sean Penn, Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Alana Haim

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Synopsis: A washed-up former revolutionary is forced to confront his past when both he and his daughter are hunted by a former foe…

Review: You’d have to be living under a rock to be unaware that the political climate in the United States in 2025 is as fraught and bitterly divided as it has been at any point over the past decade. In such politically charged times, it takes a brave filmmaker to hold nothing back and go for the jugular with a thorough, uncompromising look at the land of the free and what the country actually stands for. Enter Paul Thomas Anderson, with a film two decades in the making, where the revolution will very much be televised.

In one of, if not the, most frenzied first acts of the year, Pat (DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Taylor) are two members of the far-left revolutionary group the French 75. The group have gathered outside an immigrant detention centre to storm the facility and release the migrants detained, while also perpetrating attacks against other key targets against the country’s infrastructure. These attacks capture the attention of Colonel Steven J Lockjaw (Penn), who makes it his personal mission to hunt down and eliminate the group’s members at any cost. Pat and Perfidia soon fall in love and have a child, whom they name Charlene. After their daughter’s birth, Pat is determined to lay low and leave his revolutionary days behind, but Perfidia isn’t one to give up the fight so easily, which lands her on Lockjaw’s radar. After 16 years of lying low, now going under the aliases of Bob and Willa (Infiniti), the duo find themselves on the run again when they realise they are once more in Lockjaw’s crosshairs.

After an adrenaline-charged first act that throws you headfirst into the heat of the action, Anderson briefly gives the audience a moment to catch their breath, but don’t get too comfortable. One Battle After Another truly lives up to its title; while the characters may have claimed an initial victory, the war is far from over. Loosely adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, Anderson’s screenplay is sharp and scathing in its criticism of modern-day America, and the parallels between the revolutionaries and the pushback against the US government’s callous and inhumane treatment of migrants are all too relevant in the absurdity of this timeline. Yet, this is a film with a lot more on its mind as it also scathingly rebukes the hatred and oppression that marginalised groups, especially immigrants, face and a society which allows this contempt to filter into society through truly poisonous ideologies such as white supremacy. Such hatred, while those at the top perpetrate rampant corruption. It is all too relevant to the absolute authoritarian hellscape that is the US in 2025, which ensures the film hits like a sledgehammer, with a powerful and furious urgency.

Having come very close to working with Anderson on 1997’s Boogie Nights, Leonardo DiCaprio can finally add Anderson’s name to the distinguished list of filmmakers he has worked with across his career. DiCaprio rarely disappoints, even when the film around him is an absolute dumpster fire (looking at you Don’t Look Up). Unlike that film’s pitiful attempts at humour, Anderson combines the tense political themes with a surprising amount of humour. Not least because in those 16 years, he has developed a penchant for anxiety-reducing drugs to ease his paranoia, which is understandable given his revolutionary past. Consequently, he spends a not insignificant part of the film stoned out of his mind, while wearing a knitwear bathrobe that could give Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski a serious run for his money. Taylor makes her presence felt with what little screentime she has, but it is to the film’s detriment that she only appears in those explosive first 30 minutes and disappears thereafter.

Going toe to toe with such a titan of the industry would be a daunting task for anyone, especially a newcomer, but Chase Infiniti goes toe to toe with her more experienced counterpart and more than holds her own with a fierce and spirited performance. Even in the midst of a society that is seemingly crumbling before her very eyes, there is fire in her belly, especially when it comes to the threat posed by Lockjaw and her determination to find and be reunited with her father. Penn gives a fiendishly frightening turn as a bigoted and loathsome human being (those individuals being well represented in the current US administration) who thrives on the cruelty and mistreatment of others and will stop at nothing with almost robotic-like efficiency until he finds his target.

Shot in stunning VistaVision, Michael Bauman’s cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking, pulling the audience into a vividly chaotic world on the brink of collapse, yet still managing to find beauty amidst the turmoil. Jonny Greenwood continues his collaboration with Anderson with a score that pulses with intensity, driving the film’s 162-minute runtime with an electrifying energy that ensures the pacing never lags, culminating in a pulsating, edge-of-your-seat action sequence in the third act. The fires of revolution have been lit, and it is up to all of us to ensure they never go out, especially in the face of fascism, bigotry and tyranny from power-hungry madmen. Viva La Revolución!